No, but seriously, go back and listen to “Danger Zone” or “Bubble Pop Electric”…

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[4.88]

Thomas Inskeep: “Upon release, “Used to Love You” has received critical acclaim from critics,” says the song’s Wikipedia page. The drumbeat taps out its morse code of “I’m miserable,” which is unnecessary because Stefani’s whiny vocal does that just as well.
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Alfred Soto: An odd hook: “It’s cause I remembered for the first time Since I hated you/That I used to love you”? Could’ve fooled me. I can tell when Stefani, the dullest of once major pop stars, means it when her voice squeaks higher than normal. The soap opera organ is OK, an injection of melodrama best suited for a Demi Lovato. 
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Katherine St Asaph: Someday history will remember Gwen’s first solo album as packed with deep cuts. If we’re lucky, history will also remember The Voice as responsible for the smarmy-charmy homogenization of far too many artists. As much as Gwen’s increasingly forced wackiness grated on me at the time, I’ve never missed it more than here, with flashes of her personality trying to wriggle out of this event ballad.
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Will Adams: Stefani’s dodgy singles catalog can be divided into two groups: the ones intended to be affecting, and the ones intended to annoy the shit out of you. Both have their ups and their downs. “Used to Love You” should fall into the former; the lyrics are breakup boilerplate, but Stefani ties knots in her vocals to enliven them. Unfortunately, J.R. Rotem’s production is so mawkish and cheap that what should be a devastating postmortem borders on silly.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s “Cool” before the situation actually cooled, but with none of the nuance. Where the dissonance there was completely unspoken, and Stefani’s claims of contentment were so believable that they almost didn’t seem meant for the song’s ineffable sadness, “Used to Love You” could not be any less subtle. Subtlety is hardly a necessity in suggesting the presence of pain, but as she continually elasticates every other syllable with an anguished inhalation, it’s a little too present. A good song, but the hamminess sullies it somewhat.
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Edward Okulicz: When Stefani goes “oh! oh! oh! I used to love you!” I feel her pain, but it’s not empathy, it’s just pain.
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Anthony Easton: Heartbreak always sounds better with disco, and the therapist jargon of boundaries is actually super-effective. Where it slows down, and she just rages — “you know I was the best thing that ever happened to you” — it’s stated in the same way someone would state that they were out of milk. It’s perfectly current in pop and universal in emotion: the great fuck-off song of the year, and as good as her previous fuck-off classic, “Spiderwebs.”
[9]

Brad Shoup: Those performative conversational leaps in pitch are very Annabella Lwin. The timbre of the kick drum and the crisp synth peals are of the moment, but Stefani’s gets to places that are perhaps too real for recontextualization. Prove me wrong though, I guess.
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